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Dropping of the Atomic bomb
On the 6th August 1945, in an attempt to end the second world war the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This was the first time that a bomb of this power and capacity had been dropped on a civilaion population. It is estimated that a total 250,000 people were killed from this blast. It is said that the reason the Americans dropped the bomb was to show to the USSR that they possesed power weapons of ditruction. "the bomb was unnecessary in defeating japan" - Gar Alperotiv -
Period: to
Cold War
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Marshall Plan
The Marshall plan was an intitative by America in order to try to provide assistance to the countries of Europe that had been affected by the war. The plan involved the eventual $12 billion rebuilding of eastern europe. The US also offered the plan to the Soviets in order to help rubuild but it was rejected, this was when tension started to be created between US and USSR as the USSR believed that the US were just trying to establish grounds and trading partners in eastern europe -
Korean War
The Korean war was fought between the United Nations command and the chinese, soviets and north Koreans. The effort of the war was in order to try to unify the countries. The war began when the North invaded the South at the 38th parallel. The war in total caused 5 million deaths, 3.5 million of those being Korean civilians, the Korea war showed us how the differences in ideology of the USSR and USA were starting to have massive impacts on the world and ending the lives of those who were innocen -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam war started on the 1st of November 1955 and ended 20 years later on the first of April 1975. It was fought between the anti communism forces of South vietnamn, America, Australia and South Korea agaist the pro communism forces of Noth vietnam China and the Soviet Union. The war ultimatley ended when the US removed troops and the North Vietnamse Army triumphed. This lead to Communist governments take power in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and the reunification of Norh and south Nam -
Berlin Wall
The construction of the Berlin Wall began on 13th of August 1961, it was built by the German Democratic Republic and cut off West Berlin from the east and the rest of Eastern Germany. The purpose of the wall was in order to prevent the mass emigration and defection that marked east Germany during post WWII. The immediate effects were that the majority of East Germans could no longer travel to West Germany. Many families were split, and those who had previously worked in the West became unemploy -
Cuban Missile Crisis
In may of 1962 a plan was developed by the soviets to set up a series of nuclear bases in Cuba.On sept 5th 1962 the US started sending U2 plans over cuba in order to photgraph the land as they were suspicions on nuclar weapons. On Oct 15th 1962 it was discovered that there were a series of missile launch pads with the potential to destory many Americans cities. The result was withdrawal of Soviet Union's nuclear missiles from Cuba and withdrawal of United States' nuclear missiles from Turkey -
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was the 40th president of the United states and had a massive impact on the ending of the cold war. He was an initiator in the introduction of nuclear arms treaties that help to conatin the number of nuclear weapons that both sides were using, he also had a major influence of the collapse of the cold war, he is known for his famous speech where he demands that the Soviets "tear down this wall"
